[Suggestion] Order of News on the Front Page

[BSS]

It looks like the order of posts on the front page are determined by when they are submitted, and not when they are approved. Is this right?

So often I see news posts appear before ones that were there before. As a consequence, because I only noticed this recently, I'm sure there are tons of articles that I've missed because I only use to look at the front page up to one that I remember seeing before...

It's probably a pain in the arse to change, so I'm not expecting anything.

[t101]

I second that. I often nearly miss stuff 'cos I'm looking at the top.

[Moses]

I've also noticed this, and can go part of the way in explaining why it happens.

When I go in to approve the news articles, I start from the bottom and move my way up through the posted articles, as I imagine all news mods would do.

The hiccup occurs when the story is half-posted. If the news poster follows Zand3r's news posting guidelines (http://forums.zgeek.com/showthread.php?t=26170) then all we need to do is verify the link, confirm it's not already posted, then move it to the front page - about 2 minutes work.

If the news poster has only followed some of the guidelines, additional work is required to make the story live, in which case if we're short for time the article above it often gets approved first as it's ready to go.

Occasionally I will leave an article in there for another news mod because either I didn't find the article interesting and hence wouldn't have thought it news-worthy, or because the link doesn't work for me on my work machine and I want someone to verify it before posting to the front page.

Ideally the solution would be to display the front page in order of the time that the thread was last moved, but I don't know if this is possible without hacking VbIndex.

[Bostonmess]

Yup, as above. There's also the addition of "News Authors" too, they have their posts automatically front paged while there might be some still awaiting approval. I'm not saying that's wrong BTW, it's just the way it is.

[MisterBishi]

Some people can post straight to the front page, but are not able to approve those waiting in the approval queue.

If one such person posts something directly to the front page whilst there is something in the approval queue, anything in the queue will appear below the naughty person's post as it has an earlier timestamp.

Also, approvers should be checking the approval queue before submitting stuff of their own, but I think that happens anyway.

[Pagey]

yeah but that doesn't explain why the order of news articles changes on the front page after they have been posted. Like, certain stories will stay at the top and newer articles are posted below.

Wait, maybe I have misunderstood. Does it mean that when you guys approve a news story, that it is automatically posted in the order that it is submitted in the first place? So that an article which stays at the top is posted after the other articles but it was approved first?

Sorry, I think I just confused myself more. anywho!

[thingy]

It is listed by when the thread was created. On the prior version of vbullitin there was not really any other way to order it other than by last post, which would seriously fuck up the front page. I do not know if it is still possible with V3. By the fact that it is not changed, I think it may be safe to assume it is not.

When someone submits news, it goes in to a forum called "News Articles Awaiting Review". A moderator then looks at it, makes appropriate changes, and moves the thread to "News Articles". Moving threads does not change creation date, and that is why some articles appear for the first time half way down the page.

When it can be listed by "thread created/moved, which ever came later" timestamp, it will be.

[Pagey]

Thanks MisterBishi - your explaination is worthy of rep!

[Reprobate]

It would be good if they appear on the homepage according to when they are APPROVED.

But... down the bottom where it says (eg) "Posted - 40 Minutes Ago" the posted could be when it's approved. and next to it have (eg) "Submitted - 2 hours Ago "

[thingy]

It would be good if they appear on the homepage according to when they are APPROVED.
Read my post.

[BSS]

Thanks for the details.